A central theme in the committee’s inquiry into the system for the election of the members of the House of Commons is the problem of proportional representation of political parties. Hitherto, members of Parliament have been elected in single seat constituencies. However, Parliament’s daily work relies on party affiliation, not on regional provenance. This mismatch has been the cause of many debates and initiatives for electoral reform. Similar electoral issues have been encountered in German history. Based on the German experience, we would like to sketch some ideas that may possibly aid in identifying feasible solutions for the Canadian problems.
In section 2, we give a short review of the essentials of the electoral system for the German Bundestag. In section 3, we turn to the Canadian House of Commons and sketch a hypothetical electoral system, tagged as “SMP and PRP”, that we view to be a natural enhancement of the current single-member plurality system.
I will begin with section 2.
I'm very pleased to appear here as a witness and to introduce to you the main features of the German electoral system. The double vote system for the election of the members of the Bundestag has become something like a democratic export hit. In contrast to other exports, like German diesel cars, it has caused no considerable mischief. Quite the contrary, it is held in high regard. Without doubt, this esteem is not undeserved, but there are at least some precautions you should take when implementing the German system.
To explain the system as a whole would be a very demanding task because the current German system is one of the most complicated systems in the world—but this is valid only for the way it works, not for the way it is executed. Furthermore, the complex intricacies of the German system are mostly due to its federal structure and the specific way the German system is adapted to that.
Although Canada is also a federal state, due to constitutional constraints, especially the fixed numbers of seats for every province, a one-to-one transfer of the German electoral system to the context of Canada is probably not possible. The only solution we could imagine, therefore, consists in the application of the system within each province separately. This is also the way it was used in the first German federal election in 1949. The separate application within each province makes things much easier. Therefore, I will concentrate on the main features of the German electoral system only.
In the literature, the German system is often referred to as a mixed member proportional system. The key point is its combination of two ballots that are used at two different tiers: the direct and personal election of candidates in single-member districts, and the voting for party lists in an upper tier, which is big enough to ensure that the proportional distribution of seats between the parties can be guaranteed. The intention was to maintain the proportional system of the Weimar Republic, but to complement it with the advantages of directly elected local representatives to which the citizens could establish a special personal relationship.
In the German electoral system each citizen has two votes. With the first vote—the Erststimme—the voter selects one of the candidates in his constituency. With the second vote—the Zweitstimme—the voter votes for a so-called Landesliste, which is a party list for one of the 16 Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany. For a better understanding, I will refer to the second vote as the “party vote”.
One-half of the seats in the German Bundestag are constituency seats and are attributed to the candidates who have won the plurality of first votes in their constituency. The second half are list seats. Only those parties that have won more than 5% of all valid second votes, or have won at least three constituency seats, are entitled to participate in the proportional distribution of seats according to the Sainte-Laguë procedure.
We can skip, for reasons of simplicity, the complex distribution of seats among the Länder. What is important is the fact that in the end each party is entitled to a certain number of seats according to its share of party votes. From that number, the number of constituency seats that the party gained in that Land is subtracted. The remaining seats are distributed according to the ranks in the Landesliste.
Persons on the list who have already won a constituency seat are not considered, so it is possible that the number of constituency seats achieved in one Land is higher than the number to which the party list is entitled. Such seats are called “surplus seats” or “overhang seats”. As long as there are no overhang seats, the distribution of seats among the parties is more or less proportional, depending on the rounding effects and the effective threshold.
The linkage between the single-member district tier and the upper tier of the Land guarantees that the whole number of seats of a party, including the constituency seats it has won, is covered by its second votes. Thus, usually the first votes are important only in regard to the personal occupation of seats. They are, with the exception of the emergence of surplus seats, irrelevant for the number of seats a party gains.
The whole purpose of this linkage between the two tiers is to correct for violations of proportionality that occur in the course of the distribution of seats in the single-member districts.
As mentioned, the situation is more complicated when overhang seats emerge. These are seats for which the appropriate [Inaudible--Editor] and party votes are not raised, so proportionality is violated.
One possible solution to restore proportionality could be to enhance Parliament until the overhang seats are covered by the proportionally distributed seats for the parties. This solution is applied in all electoral laws of the German Bundesländer, which also have mixed member proportional systems, and since 2012 it has also been valid in the federal electoral law.
This solution is obviously not available if the size of Parliament is fixed. In this case, restoring proportionality isn't possible as long as the gain of a constituency seat is guaranteed. It would certainly violate fundamental considerations of fairness to deny the winner of a plurality of first votes his constituency seat, so some deviations from perfect proportionality may be the necessary price for preserving the principle of direct representation by personally elected MPs in the single-member districts. At least, this price should be no higher than is required by the wish to satisfy our taste for fairness.
The best response to that problem consists in the attempt to prevent the creation of overhang seats whenever possible. Sometimes overhang seats are the consequence of the structure of the party system. Since this is a materialization of voter preferences, it cannot be manipulated. However, some overhang seats are created by strategic voting, especially by ticket splitting, which occurs if a first vote is given to a candidate who is not a candidate of the party to which the second vote is given. These overhang seats can simply be avoided by abolishing the two-vote system. Then, the voters have only one vote, which they cast for candidates in their constituency. The party votes, which are the base for the proportional distribution of seats, are calculated by summing up all personal votes for constituency candidates.
This system was also used in 1949 for the first German federal election, and it is still used in Baden-Württemberg. This would also have the nice advantage that parties have an especially strong incentive to nominate attractive candidates.
Mr. Pukelsheim will now continue with the presentation.